Version 0.2.0 is finally available! There are 3 new stories to play and a bunch of improvements. My friend and collaborator Nathan Gould has done an excellent job editing all stories. No only the overall quality of the text has increased immensely, but new dialog has been added as well.

As for some visual changes, the lighting has been fixed in order for the game not be so dark in some areas. You can see a comparison below.

Also, Siebel3d has made an all new model for the Point665 Bar. You can see a comparison on this recent post.

The game also has an autosave system now (manual saving coming in the future). And there’s a menu where you can see all stories and mark them as played, in order to make it easier to replay them.

You can find a full changelog inside the menu as well for a complete list! As for the next version, I’m planing to add 4 new stories, and a whole new area (neighborhood), the French Quarter.

This update will be a big one, and as I mentioned before, I will increase the price of the game whenever I make one of these. So get it now if you want to get a discount!

Still working on the next update. Two stories are already in, still one to go!

One of the stories features a character that will show up quite often, the radio host for New Wenders Night Radio, Gordon Pole.

On another note, @siebel3d​ has already been working on a new neighborhood that will be added on a future update, the French Quarter:

The French Quarter is the oldest part of New Wenders, and in the recent years has become a synonym for night life and a hot spot for tourists. The abundance of drunk people makes the French Quarter is a prime hunting spot, and with narrow streets and dark alleyways, a perfect place to dispose of your snack inconspicuously.

It’s been a while since the last update on how Blackout is coming along, so I decided to share some details.

The text is finally complete and fully edited. Here are some stats:

Chapter names are redacted to avoid spoilers, since they are basically different locations in the game. There was a 10k words increase since the last time I made a word count, mostly due to additional scenes (and endings) that were added, and also some details added in the editing process.

So what’s left now? Well, there’s some art still to be finished, and in the meantime there will be a lot of testing and fixing going on. Speaking of art, here’s a sneak peek on an unfinished piece.

That’s it for now! If you are interested in testing the game, get in touch through our discord or send a message here or on twitter @robsonsiebel.

Cheers,

Robson

]]>https://minichimera.wordpress.com/2020/01/11/blackout-sneak-peek/feed/0Blackout - Flashback 1minichimeraChapters Stats.jpgWishlist687474703a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f6579317863594d2e706e67Early Access is here!https://minichimera.wordpress.com/2019/10/30/early-access-is-here/
https://minichimera.wordpress.com/2019/10/30/early-access-is-here/#respondWed, 30 Oct 2019 09:09:19 +0000http://minichimera.wordpress.com/?p=1357Continue reading Early Access is here!]]>Taxi by Night has finally launch on early access, and just in time for the itch Halloween Sale!

You can get a 10% launch discount until November 4th!

If you want to know more about how the updates will work, and what do you get for buying the game early, we have a detailed FAQ post. In case you have any further questions, you can leave a comment here, on the game page or even through our channels on Discord, Twitter or even email minichimeragamestudio@gmail.com.

We have also set up a rewards program as a way for you to support the game in case you really like it, or even have a say or become a character in the game yourself. You can check all the rewards on the game page.

I wanted to make a devlog post highlighting some of the changes before we launch the early access version, which should happen in one or two weeks, if nothing goes wrong.

Most stories in the game take place in certain neighborhoods of New Wenders. There will be two of them available for the Early Access launch: Downtown and East-side (the first one being the one that was on the game jam version).

But some stories will unfold – in part or entirely – in smaller areas, like a diner. One specific diner, called Tangerine:

And speaking of coffee, you might also run into some not-so-pleasant encounters.

The new neighborhood, East-side, is very different from Downtown. It’s darker, the buildings are not so nice and there are no trees or small parks around.

As for the stories, the early access version will feature four of them (so about 10% of the total planned for the full game, most of which is already written as of now), with different characters, in three different locations.

I will have an FAQ done before launch detailing more of what’s going to change with every update, but basically the idea is to add new stories and fix/improvements based on feedback. The price of the game will also go up as we make meaningful updates, so that’s also a big incentive to get it early =)

This week I’ve spent some time working on a crucial part of the game: Flashbacks!

The flashbacks hold some very important story moments, and they have a minigame element associated with them.

Flashback Minigame – Work in Progress

There are a total of 7 flashbacks in the game, and you can get all of them in one playthrough, but you can also avoid most of them, depending on what you value the most: the truth or your sanity.

While some flashbacks will reveal a whole picture of a moment, others are part of a bigger moment, and will uncover only one piece of the puzzle.

How far would you go, Richard?”

I have also recorded a video to show what the whole thing looks like in the game. If you want to avoid possible spoilers and go in knowing as little as possible, consider not watching. Remember this is still a work in progress, and some things will change and be more polished in the final version, like the text boxes, sound effects and the color of the puzzle pieces.

And if you want to learn more about Siebel3d’s work, check his twitter or facebook!

]]>https://minichimera.wordpress.com/2019/08/03/new-taxi-model/feed/0minichimeraNew Taxi 2New Taxigustavo-siebel-render9gustavo-siebel-render10.jpg687474703a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f6579317863594d2e706e67The Map of New Wendershttps://minichimera.wordpress.com/2019/05/31/the-map-of-new-wenders/
https://minichimera.wordpress.com/2019/05/31/the-map-of-new-wenders/#respondFri, 31 May 2019 17:52:04 +0000http://minichimera.wordpress.com/?p=1316Continue reading The Map of New Wenders]]>On this post, I will write about something very important that we have been working on for a long time: the map of New Wenders!

We’re not Bethesda, so we didn’t start the game with a map, on the contrary, the idea for the map came in very late, when the story was already finished. More precisely, when we updated the game to widescreen aspect ration.

If you played the preview version on itch, you probably noticed the map is just a placeholder and serves to nothing but aesthetics. But we wanted to make it interactive and something the player can use as a reference for story events.

We ended up removing the “chapter select” screen that is on the preview version. This screen was supposed to appear every time a chapter ended, as a transition to a new location.

Old Chapter Select Screen

But since we now had a map, it made more sense to show the transition through it.

New Chapter Screen

Nothing fancy, the pin just moves from the current location to the new. This will also show up when loading a game, so the player will be able to see all important events from the current playthrough.

The pin show where the player is now. A red dot indicates a location already visited in the current save; A blue dot indicates a location visited in a previous save; A yellow dot indicates a location still unknown.

The player can also access the smaller version of the map at anytime. When he passes the mouse over the points marking the locations, he will see some information like how many passages has he visited and what events happened in each location.

Location Events

The evens will written in bold if it happened during the current save, and grayed out if it happened in a previous save. If the player never seen experienced the event, it will show as ??????. In a similar way, the visited passages for the location appear in bold, while the known passages from all playthroughs appear grayed out.

This will make it easier (and more interesting) for players trying to see 100% of the passages or events =)

This post is more focused on the map itself, later on I will talk more about New Wenders. What kind of city is it? What kind of people inhabit it? What do they feed on?